Lottery games of both the “instant win” and “future draw” type games are popular. They are found in state run and privately run lottery systems worldwide, and provide a significant source of income for government operators to generate revenues for public purposes such as education.
Future draw lotteries, like Lotto or Powerball often have large prizes and appeal to players who purchase tickets on a regular schedule or with a group. However, these games, which often have daily or weekly draws, often do not appeal as much to players who want immediate entertainment and the chance for a win at the present time. However, future draw games with particularly large “life changing” jackpots often attract players who would not otherwise play the game, increasing returns for the game operators.
Instant win tickets are most commonly sold as “scratch-off” tickets, where the game result is indicated by game play information concealed by a removable scratch-off layer. This layer can be removed by the player after the ticket is purchased to reveal the game outcome. Instant win tickets are popular in part because they allow a player to determine the prize value of their ticket immediately after purchase. Instant win tickets also have bright, attractive graphic schemes and are sold as eye-catching consumer items. One approach to increasing instant win ticket sales that has been used successfully is to offer games that include a small likelihood of a large “life-changing” prize. These prizes may attract players who might not otherwise play the game, or cause regular players to purchase additional tickets.
However, generally there are only a limited number of large prizes in a particular instant ticket game with a finite number of issued tickets. Sometimes there may be only a single very large grand prize for a game. In some jurisdictions where large prize tickets are sold, the lottery may be required to pull or discontinue the game when the large prize is redeemed. The probability of having a particular level of ticket sales that occur before a redemption of a large prize can be statistically predicted. Game operators can then adjust the prize structure and payout percentage to insure the proper expected return for the lottery in light of the possibility of an early game termination. However, there is still a great deal of unnecessary expense incurred when an early redemption of the large prize ticket occurs.
To provide additional user interest, some game operators have provided drawings or additional play options for losing instant tickets, e.g., all players holding losing tickets could use a form to mail in losing tickets to be entered in a consolation drawing. One purpose of such drawings is to allow game operators to build up customer information databases for purchasers who would otherwise remain anonymous. However, such “second chance” games cannot provide any additional reward to holders of winning tickets because almost all instant lottery games require that winning tickets be tendered for redemption in order to receive the associated instant ticket prize. Thus holders of winning tickets, even for small prizes, could not be entered in a second chance mail in drawing.